Allocator10x - How This $11B Allocator Picks Venture Managers - Tom Duffy, Director, Private Markets, TIFF

What do you think the best managers have in common?

If I could answer this question in just one word, I think that word would be focus.

How do you look at themes like crypto and AI, which are both extremely volatile and driven by hype to some extent as well? How do you look at these themes?

This cannot simply be an afterthought or just something you pick up and start. This needs to be your true bread and butter.

There's a DPI crisis sort of going on. How do you manage

to bring that in? It's very hard to judge venture vintage on DPI in year six or year seven of a closed exit market.

Hey everyone, this is Prashant and I'll be host for the VC10x podcast and today we have Tom Duffy with us. Tom is a director on the private markets team at TIFF, an $11 billion firm that manages outsourced CIO and asset class strategies for nonprofit endowments and foundations, with over $3 billion of that committed to private markets. TIFF has been backing early stage venture managers since 1997 across every cycle since. In this conversation, we cover how TIFF selects venture managers, how it underwrites an emerging manager raising a first fund, how it gets exposure to AI and crypto without chasing the theme, and what it's doing about the distribution drought that every LP is feeling right now. So without wasting any time, let's dive straight in. This episode is brought to you by PodcastNX, my podcasting agency for VCs. We help VCs start and run branded podcasts that can serve as their entire content engine. Turn the conversations you're already having into a machine. One recording becomes your presence on LinkedIn, Spotify, YouTube, and email. Don't just build another VC firm, build a firm that can stand out to LPs and one that founders can brag about having you on their cap table. Check out our services at podcast10x.com. I'll put the link in the description below. Now, enjoy the episode. Hey, Tom, so good to have you on the VC 10X podcast. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me today. It's great to be here with you. I appreciate it.

Yeah, it's a pleasure having you on. And to start things off, let's have the TIFF origin story and what it really does.

Of course. Yeah. So TIFF has such an interesting origin story. So I'm happy to spend a few minutes talking about how we were initially created and how we've evolved over time. So TIFF is an institutional investment management firm that was founded over 35 years ago now to provide investment solutions primarily to nonprofit institutions where we specialize in both outsource CIO or OCIO solutions, as well as individual asset class strategies, including a large focus in private markets where I spend my time working. Our founders, the MacArthur and Rockefeller Foundations, they looked at the investment landscape of the day facing institutions and individuals, and they saw this real lack of scale and inability to find and access the best investment opportunities. And they recognized the high fees that so many firms were paying for pretty mediocre investment results. So ultimately, TIFF was created to help solve for each of these issues, and it's been our mission never since to create investment